Cream cheese

Cream cheese
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cream_cheese".

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Cream Cheese

Country of origin	United States
Region, town	Chester, New York
Source of milk	Cow
Pasteurised
Texture	Soft
Aging time	none
Certification

Cream cheese is a sweet, soft, mild-tasting, white cheese, defined by the US Department of Agriculture as containing at least 33% milkfat (as marketed) with a moisture content of not more than 55%, and a pH range of 4.4 to 4.9.^[1]

Cream cheese is not naturally matured and is meant to be consumed fresh, and so it differs from other soft cheeses such as Europe's Brie and Neufchâtel. More comparable in taste, texture, and production methods are Boursin and Mascarpone.

1 Origin
2 Usage
3 Manufacture
4 See also
5 References
6 Related Books
7 External links

Origin

According to the US food processing company Kraft Foods:

Cream cheese originated in 1755 when a dairyman in Cleveland, Ohio developed a 'richer cheese than ever before,' made from cream as well as whole milk. Then in 1880, a New York cheese distributor, A. L. Reynolds, first began distributing cream cheese wrapped in tin-foil wrappers, calling it Philadelphia Brand....The name "Philadelphia Brand cream cheese" was adopted by Reynolds for the product because at that time, top-quality food products often originated in or were associated with the city, and were often referred to as being "Philadelphia quality."^[2]

However, the technique is known to have been in use in Normandy since the 1850s, producing cheeses with higher fat content than the US model,^[3]^[4] and Philadelphia cream cheese has been suggested as a substitute when petit suisse is not available.^[5].

Philadelphia is used by some as a generic term for cream cheese, and in Spanish it is translated as Queso Filadelfia.^[6]

Usage

Cream cheese is typically used in savoury snacks of various types (for example spread on bread, bagels, crackers, etc.) and can be used in cheesecakes and in salads.

Manufacture

Cream cheese is difficult to manufacture^{citation needed}. Normally, protein molecules in milk have a negative surface charge, which keeps milk in a liquid state; the molecules act as surfactants, forming micelles around the particles of fat and keeping it in emulsion. Lactic acid bacteria are added to pasteurized and homogenized milk. During the fermentation at around 23 °C, the pH level of the milk decreases. Amino acids at the surface of the proteins begin losing charge and become neutral, turning the fat micelles from hydrophilic to hydrophobic state and causing the liquid to coagulate. If the bacteria are left in the milk too long, the pH lowers farther, the micelles attain a positive charge and the mixture returns to liquid form. The key then is to kill the bacteria by heating the mixture to 52-63 °C at the moment the cheese is in an isoelectric point, meaning the state at which half the ionizable surface amino acids of the proteins are positively charged and half are negative. Inaccurate timing of heating leads to an inferior or unusable product.^{citation needed}

However, subtle changes in the timing of the process can result in variations in flavor and texture. Furthermore, because cream cheese has a higher fat content than other cheeses, and fat repels water, which tends to separate from the cheese, stabilizers such as guar and carob gums must be added^{citation needed} to prolong its shelf life.

Improper heat treatment of milk may lead to formation of hard particles of amorphous compacted protein, causing unpleasant grittiness.